The most important director in India, Satyajit Ray, gained International renown making remarkable films in terms of social and human analyses. Ray came from a family of intellectuals. His father was a writer, painter, and photographer. He was from the University of Calcutta where he studied painting before he began to work for a British advertising agency. His enthusiasm for cinema was a result of meeting Jean Renoir who, in 1950, had been to India to film The River with him as Assistant.

On one of his visits to England, he saw over one hundred films, including Vittorio De Sica's Ladri di Biciclette. He returned to India convinced it was possible to make realistic films with a cast almost entirely consisting of amateurs.

In 1947, he founded the Calcutta Film Society and, eight years later, made his first feature Song of the Little Road, on a slim budget, with young amateurs both on screen and as a technical team. To make this first film, he had to resort to money from his wife until he was able to obtain government financing. The director thus began producing films intensively, acknowledged as he was, the world over. His stories were invariably set to music he himself composed.

His next film, Aparajito, of 1956 was regarded as disastrous by the public in India; notwithstanding, the film was awarded a Gold Lion at the Venice Festival. A great success, acknowledged at film festivals. Satyajit was, for two years consecutively, awarded the prize for Best Director at the Berlin Festival, for Mahanagar (1963), and Charulata (1964).

From the fifties until early on in the eighties, he directed from one to two features a year, until his chronically frail health worsened. He was almost three years without filming - an eternity if we are to consider his productive and tireless trajectory. A text from Ibsen, "An Enemy of the People", marked his return to filming on set in 1989, and was the base for Ganashatru.

In his almost 35 years devoted to cinema, Satyajit made a total of 36 films and was awarded an Oscar for his film career. The Stranger, of 1991 was his last film. Satyajit Ray was born in Calcutta on May 2, 1921 and died on April 23, 1992.

The 9th Mostra included a vast retrospective as a tribute to Ray in 1985. Now, 15 years later, Satyajit Ray will, again, be acknowledged in São Paulo with six of his most important films.